Anti-Scientology Hacker Admits Attacks
Dmitriy Guzner, 19, of Verona, N.J., Monday pled guilty Monday for his role in the distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack against the Scientology Web sites in January 2008. Guzner is due for sentencing Aug. 24 in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of $250,000 for his role, according to court documents.
According to information filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in October 2008, Guzner participated in the attacks as a member of an underground group called "Anonymous." The group led protests against the Church of Scientology on several Web sites and in January 2008 posted a video on YouTube denouncing the religion.
Guzner may catch a break when he is sentenced.
According to the October 2008 court filing, Guzner "assisted authorities in the investigation or prosecution of his own misconduct by timely notifying authorities of his intention to enter a plea of guilty, thereby permitting the government to avoid preparing for trial and permitting the government and the court to allocate their resources efficiently." The filing went on to say that if Guzner entered a guilty plea, he would qualify for a "2-point reduction [in his sentencing] for acceptance of responsibility."
Tech security firm Arbor Networks in Chelmsford, Mass., calculated that the Anonymous group carried out 488 attacks in a one-week period; a maximum packet-per-second rate of nearly 20,000, with an average attack size of 15,000 packets per second; and a maximum bandwidth per attack of 220 Mbps, with an average attack size of 168 Mbps.
The DDOS attacks were not taken lightly by law enforcement officials. The case was investigated by the U.S Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force in Los Angeles, and assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office Bureau of Investigation.